The Innisfree Poetry Journal

www.innisfreepoetry.org

by Judith McCombs

DETAILS, JACKET

for Elisenda & Richard

The bedroom, winter light streaming in, white as the sheers on the windows.

The bed, four polished brown posts, foursquare to the winds, island of rest.

From upstate New York to 'Nam, California, Nepal, his lifeline led here.

The bedspread, petals or blazes of red, shapes drifting and held.

The pillows, side by side, head to head.

On the spread his jacket, grey padded leather, lies sideways and 

half-folded over,

like a sleeper turned to the window, waiting.

Quietly, she lifts the jacket: This is Richard's.

It's what he was wearing, she says. His kids took the hat back to Nepal.

No one wanted his jacket. She opens the grey leather folds, still pliable,

to show the scissoring, too late, up the left chest and down the left arm.

It can be sewn, she says.